Planet of the Apes: Film Series Retrospective

So this past weekend saw the release of ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’, the sequel to 2011’s ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’, which itself was a reboot of the original/iconic sci-fi franchise; ‘Planet of the Apes’. It all began in 1968 with the release of a film that was based off of the 1963 book La Planète des singes by Pierre Boulle. The film, ‘Planet of the Apes’, was a major success both critically and commercially which resulted in the spawning of a film franchise that would see four more movies released through the early 70’s, with each sequel coming just a year after its immediate predecessor (excluding the first sequel, which came out two years after the original film). When the original franchise ended in 1973, the first film got a loose ‘remake’ in 2001 that was slated to revive the franchise. However, while it was financially successful at the box office, it didn’t fare as well critically resulting in the series being ‘rebooted’ once again in 2011 with ‘Rise’ and, safe to say, this newer film fared much better. Today, we’ll be looking at all of the films in the ‘Planet of the Apes’ franchise from the original that started it all to the series’ recent reboots. Now there have also been two TV series that were made following the original series; 1974’s live-action series, ‘Planet of the Apes’ and 1975’s animated series, ‘Return to the Planet of the Apes’ but I won’t be covering either of those series today so now let’s get started as we look back on the ‘Planet of the Apes’ film franchise.

(Quick Disclaimer: This is the first time I’m watching the original ‘Planet of the Apes’ films.)

PLANET OF THE APES (1968)

It’s been more than 4 decades since its release, and even with that in mind the original ‘Planet of the Apes’ film holds up quite well as one of the landmark sci-fi films of its time. It’s a film that has quite a lot of social commentary, namely in regards to the debate of civil rights and the belief that ‘some are superior’ to others. In this case, the ‘superior’ race of the mysterious world that the main character, astronaut George Taylor (Charlton Heston), finds himself in after his space-ship crashes on an unknown planet, isn’t humanity but instead a group of intelligent apes who have evolved to the point where they now possess the ability to speak. The make-up effects for the apes still look pretty good today and while we have definitely moved on since the days of having these apes created through practical makeup (as proven by this series’ recent reboot films), it is still done pretty effectively here. The cast here does a pretty good job; Charlton Heston gets a little over-the-top at times but still does a solid job as does Roddy McDowall as the archeologist ape, Cornelius. If I did have any complaints about this film, it would be that occasionally there are some very corny/over-the-top moments, some of which are attributed to, as I just noted, Heston’s occasional over-acting.

Something that newcomers to this film might not expect going in is that the film actually has a kind of a very pessimistic view on the future of civilization… though in retrospect pretty much all of these films have had that same view. As the ‘protagonist’, Taylor is actually a bit of a jerk to his allies, human or ape, though in the end he’s aware of the consequences that are arising from what mankind is doing to the planet. Of course, this relates to what was going on at the time when this film came out (e.g. civil rights movement and the evolution of technology, among other things). Of course those consequences are truly exemplified in the film’s iconic twist ending in which Taylor learns that the planet he was on just so happened to be Earth the whole time, many years into the future, which he realizes when he comes across the remains of the Statue of Liberty. I will admit that I did know about the twist before seeing the film but it is still an excellent twist and is set up so well because we are effectively led to believe that we’re on a different planet but as the film progresses we slowly discover that this isn’t the case. Unlike the twist of another ‘Planet of the Apes’ movie which I’ll get to later, this is one of the best movie twists ever. The original ‘Planet of the Apes’ is one of the finest sci-fi films ever made as it immerses us in this ape world while also maintaining some strong (even though it is fairly pessimistic) social commentary. It’s a must-see for any sci-fi movie fan.

Rating: 4.5/5

BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES (1970)

Umm, I really don’t know where to begin with this one because… well, you’ll see why soon enough. Anyway, ‘Beneath of the Planet of the Apes’ starts out okay enough even though it basically just rehashes a lot of the key plot points of the previous film; an astronaut crash-lands on the Ape-inhabited post-apocalyptic Earth, comes across the Ape City, at one point is one of the apes’ prisoners, he escapes, and then ultimately realizes where he truly is when he comes across an old New York landmark. It’s pretty much just exactly what Taylor went through in the last film, although here it doesn’t have the same impact as the previous film did. Plus, no offense to James Franciscus, but he’s no Charlton Heston, who only appears in this for a brief time and it quite frankly feels like he doesn’t really give a crap here (which isn’t that surprising seeing how he didn’t really want to return for this one in the first place. He only did on the condition that his character would be killed off by the end of it). So if one were to go by just this film’s first half, it basically just seems like your average sequel. But then we get to this film’s second half, which is for the record the most interesting part of the movie (it’s certainly much more interesting than what we got from this film’s first half) but it is also where things get really strange.

So in this film, there are a group of telepathic humans that are living underground in the ruins of the New York City Subway and they are worshippers of the atomic bomb… yes folks you read that right… that is the main plot of the film. I will give the film credit in that this really is an interesting idea, but quite frankly it kind of comes out of nowhere. Also, I think that by the time this whole scenario pops up, it feels like the film forgot about what movie franchise it’s a part of because the apes are kind of given the shaft in this half of the movie. Now don’t misinterpret me, because they’re still in it, but the whole ‘telepath’ plot doesn’t really connect with them. This is basically just two storylines in one and they really don’t mesh well together. And then we get to this film’s ending… I’m guessing that the filmmakers looked at the original film’s ending and thought to themselves, ‘Hell, we can go even farther than that!’ And quite frankly they do by literally blowing up the world with the telepath group’s atomic bomb. I know that some people actually like this ending but I’m sorry… this ending kind of sucks. I mean, sure it’s a ballsy ending and it does sort of follow in the footsteps of the previous film’s pessimistic twist ending but I feel like it just doesn’t work as well. In this case it feels more like it was just done for shock value and nothing else. Overall, this film just got really, really weird and in a film with talking apes… that’s saying a hell of a lot, folks. Now I don’t think it’s a bad film as there are some really good things in it (the makeup effects are still really good, especially for the telepaths when they reveal their ‘true forms’) but this is easily one of the weirdest sequels I’ve ever seen and I can’t say that this is a good thing.

Rating: 2.5/5

ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES (1971)

As you might have guessed, the ‘Planet of the Apes’ movies have generally been known for their fairly dark tones and equally dark endings, so it’s interesting to see that the first half of ‘Escape From the Planet of the Apes’ decides to go for a much more upbeat atmosphere than what we’ve come to expect from these films. In this film, the two main apes from the previous two films, Zira (Kim Hunter) and Cornelius (Roddy McDowall, who had to be replaced by David Watson in ‘Beneath’ due to scheduling conflicts but returns to the role here (which really helps)), along with a friend of theirs, Dr. Milo (Sal Mineo), salvage the spaceship used by George Taylor and his crew that crash landed in the first film, repair it, and then use it to escape the planet before, as seen in the end of ‘Beneath’, it is destroyed by the atomic bomb. They end up getting caught in the shock wave caused by Earth’s destruction and are sent back in time to 1973 Los Angeles. For the first half of the film, after Zira and Cornelius (Milo is killed by a non-speaking gorilla while they are held captive at a zoo) reveal to the world that they can speak and that they come from the future, they basically become celebrities but after Zira finds out that she is pregnant, soon the government starts to turn against them as they fear that this child will soon result in the apes becoming the ‘dominant’ species of the planet. In other words, the events of this film are pretty much setting up what will happen to humanity 2000 years later as we saw in both the original ‘Planet of the Apes’ and ‘Beneath’.

The first half of this film, which maintains a ‘fish out of water’ theme, is a welcome breath of fresh air after the mindf*** that was the second half of ‘Beneath’ and really the best part about this entire film are its two main characters: Zira and Cornelius. They are such a likable pair (just as they have been in the previous two films) and I really have to give a lot of credit towards Kim Hunter and Roddy McDowall for doing terrific jobs in these roles. We really do care about them, which is why the film’s dark ending is so impactful. As expected with this franchise, this film does end on a very somber note as Zira and Cornelius end up getting killed trying to protect their newborn baby. However, we soon find out that they switched babies with an ape in a traveling circus run by Armando (played by the original Khan himself, Ricardo Montalbán) and the film ends with the newborn, named Milo, speaking his first word; ‘Mama’. This is easily one of the best endings out of all of the ‘Apes’ movies. It’s built up very well given the film’s more light-hearted first half as the film does end up going the dark path that this franchise is usually known for taking. But at the same time, it is also legitimately emotionally impactful because we care about Zira and Cornelius, making their deaths very heartbreaking. Many say that this is the best of the original ‘Apes’ sequels… and after seeing this film, I must say that I certainly agree with that statement.

Rating: 4/5

CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (1972)

Some might refer to ‘Conquest of the Planet of the Apes’ as the original ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ as both films have a similar plot; heck, they even have the same main character, Caesar albeit in a different time. He’s played here by the same man who played his father in the original ‘Planet’ and ‘Escape’, Roddy McDowall. What comes of this is, well to put it quite frankly, the craziest entry in the series. I mean, this film is worth it just for the second half, in which Caesar leads an ape revolt against their human tormentors. This has to be one of the most chaotic battles that I’ve ever seen in any film. It’s certainly the most violent out of all of the original ‘Apes’ films, evident by the fact that this is the only ‘PG’ rated entry in the original series, whereas the others were rated ‘G’. The filmmakers even had to change the ending, in which the apes beat the main bad guy, Governor Breck, to death because it was ‘too violent’ though really it’s not that violent because it’s just implied what happens to him and is not actually shown on screen. Still, I actually do prefer the newer ending in which they don’t beat Breck to death, even though the additional speech that Caesar gives is kind of poorly edited (mostly because the filmmakers didn’t have the budget to shoot a new ending). I guess it’s mostly because I do sort of feel that the original ending did come off as a bit ‘too’ dark. I mean, this is the franchise where one film ended by literally destroying the world, but even with all of the chaos that goes on in this finale, it feels like just a bit too much. Plus, the original ending actually doesn’t really gel well with the following film in which humans do have a peaceful relationship with the apes despite the fact that the apes are the ‘dominant’ species.

On that note, one of the main problems with the film is that the abuse directed towards the apes by humans is kind of excessive. It does make us sympathize with Caesar (played very well by McDowall in a role that is arguably more layered than when he played Cornelius though that’s sort of up for debate) and the apes but at the same time it makes the film darker than it really needs to be. Again, this franchise has been known for going dark, but this is just too much in my opinion. Also, the cinematography is a little crappy at times, especially during the final battle. Still, I will give this film credit for, if nothing else, the crazy-as-hell finale which is both awesome and sort of over-the-top extreme at the same time. I can’t say that ‘Conquest’ is the best of the ‘Apes’ films (in fact, I’d actually recommend the ‘remake’ (and I use the term loosely because it really isn’t a remake) ‘Rise’ more than this one because I feel like the story in the newer film was executed much better and had much emotional depth) but it’s still a pretty entertaining entry in the series. It’s certainly the craziest of the films, that’s for sure.

Rating: 3/5

BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES (1973)

The original series came to a close with ‘Battle of the Planet of the Apes’ which, like its immediate predecessor, must have inspired part of the plot of one of the recent reboots, in this case the just-released ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’… and while I hate to have to compare these two films, especially considering that one of these films just came out a few days ago, I have to in this case because ‘Battle for the Planet of the Apes’… is pretty much the weakest of the original ‘Planet of the Apes’ films. Despite focusing on the developing war between the human survivors of the Apes’ takeover and the Apes, the film doesn’t have the same emotional depth as ‘Dawn’ because we don’t really care for any of the characters in this other than Caesar but that’s because we already got to know him in ‘Conquest’ and we don’t get to know anyone else here so we can’t become attached to any of them. Director J. Lee Thompson, who is notably the only director to have ever made more than one ‘Apes’ movies having also directed ‘Conquest’, does his best with the small budget that he has but overall the film comes up short in many aspects, including a finale that’s fairly anti-climactic despite the fact that it revolves around Caesar going after the ape that killed his son. I’m aware that a couple of scenes were cut and that there is an ‘Extended Edition’ of the film that was released as a bootleg but I’m not sure how much that will help this one.

Rating: 1.5/5

PLANET OF THE APES (2001 REMAKE)

After more than a decade of development, which saw directors like James Cameron, Chris Columbus, and Peter Jackson all involved at one point or another, a ‘remake’ of the original ‘Planet of the Apes’ film was released in 2001 directed by Tim Burton. I use the term ‘remake’ loosely because this film involves different characters than the ones from the original film. However, the end result didn’t turn out as well as 20^th Century Fox had hoped. It did fare pretty well at the box office, but didn’t fare as well with critics and audiences. This ultimately resulted in Fox decided not to do a sequel to this film and instead reboot the franchise with ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’. So with that in mind, it could be argued that out of all of Tim Burton’s films, this is possibly the most hated of his amongst critics and audiences and after seeing the film I can sort of see why. Now for the record, I don’t really hate it as much as others but even with that said, this film definitely has some very noticeable flaws and it’s not just the one thing that everyone loves to talk about (which I will get to in a bit). For one thing, while watching this film, it doesn’t really scream ‘Tim Burton’ to me. Burton of course has been known for his dark macabre style but here it’s pretty much non-existent. Seriously, the studio could’ve lied and said it was directed by someone like Steven Spielberg and I would’ve believed it. That’s because this is pretty much the opposite of what you would expect from a Tim Burton film. It feels more like a ‘studio-made’ film and Burton must have been restricted when it came to utilizing his unique style on the film.

I hate to say it, but this film is actually kind of boring. It kind of drags along and nothing about it really stands out other than the prosthetic makeup for the apes done by Rick Baker, which is easily the main highlight of the film. It does have a really good cast that includes the likes of Mark Wahlberg, Helena Botham Carter, Tim Roth, and Paul Giamatti, but for the most part they’re fairly wasted in this film. I mean, I am a big fan of Wahlberg, but here it does feel like he’s just phoning it in… then again, this whole film kind of feels phoned in. Even most the action sequences are pretty forgettable, hence why this film feels like a chore to get through. Nothing about this film is memorable except for the makeup and its controversial ending. And oh yeah… now let’s talk about that ending (I would say spoilers here, but you’ve probably heard about this ending already so I’m not really going to bother doing so). At the end of the film, Wahlberg’s character Leo and his allies defeat the main bad guy, General Thade (Roth), and Leo, who had crash-landed on the ‘ape planet’ after trying to rescue one of his simian co-workers, resulting in him getting caught in an magnetic storm sending him forward in time, travels back in time using his co-worker’s space pod, and he ends up crash landing in Washington D.C.

However, he soon finds out that this Earth is now inhabited by Apes with the Lincoln Memorial monument replaced by one of Thade. Now I can see that they are trying to follow in the footsteps of the original film when it came to the ‘twist ending’, but this one really doesn’t make much sense. First off, Thade was clearly defeated as he was trapped inside a crashed space-station, so I can’t see how that would’ve changed anything when Leo went back in time and that’s really the main point that I’m stressing here; Leo went ‘back in time’!!! And yet there’s a monument to Thade built in the ape-inhabited Earth even though he technically wasn’t born yet. Is it a different Thade? Did Thade go back in time or something (we do see him coming across Leo’s crashed space-pod at one point but it’s still damaged when he finds it so it doesn’t look like he used it or anything)? Why is this turn of events occurring in the first place? I don’t know and the movie doesn’t do us any favors by explaining why this happened. This is definitely one of the weakest twist endings in movie history and as a result, Burton’s ‘Planet of the Apes’ is a pretty mediocre remake and easily Burton’s weakest film to date… at least from the ones I’ve seen.

Rating: 2/5

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (2011)

So after Fox decided not to make a sequel to Tim Burton’s ‘Planet of the Apes’ (rightfully so after that damn ending), the series was instead rebooted with 2011’s ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ directed by Rupert Wyatt. This time, instead of using practical make-up effects on the actors portraying the apes, these apes were created via motion capture with the lead ape Caesar being portrayed by the king of motion capture himself, Andy Serkis, who of course became famous for his role as Gollum in the ‘Lord of the Rings’ movies and he also portrayed the titular King Kong in Peter Jackson’s 2005 remake of the same name. As for the movie itself, it was definitely a pleasant surprise. I mean I’m guessing that not a lot of people were expecting it to be as good as it was but what we got was a smartly written sci-fi film with a script that effectively pays homage to the original movie while also giving us some greatly written characters that we do care about. In the case of this film, the ones that I’m specifically referring to are scientist Will Rodman (James Franco, who gives a very solid performance here), his father Charles (John Lithgow, who’s also great here), and of course, Caesar. The relationships amongst these three provide the excellent emotional resonance of the movie which is probably the film’s greatest strength when not counting the film’s technical strengths (e.g. visuals).

And of course, as everyone’s been saying, Andy Serkis is phenomenal in this movie, as the terrific visual effects (though a little distracting at first though this in reference to an early shot of Caesar’s biological mother and not Caesar himself) as well as Serkis’ performance in the role blend together for a great sympathetic main character. I know this following statement has been brought up to death already (I already mentioned it in my original review for ‘Dawn’) but I’m reiterating it here… why the hell hasn’t this man won an Oscar yet? I know that some argue that it’s more about the visual effects artists when it comes to motion-capture performances, but the work that Serkis does in these kinds of roles is just as important in regards to making them work as well as they do and in fact, I’d argue this is probably his best performance to date (and yes, that means I think he’s even better here than in ‘Lord of the Rings’). Overall, this film’s cast is really solid, but if I did have one complaint about the film, it is that some of the characters in this movie are either underdeveloped or incredibly one-dimensional; the most notable example of the latter is Tom Felton as Dodge Landon, the son of the owner of the primate shelter that Caesar ends up in, who’s basically just Malfoy without the Hogwarts robes. But overall, with some excellent direction from Wyatt, great performances, and top of the line visual effects, ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ is definitely one of the best and smartest sci-fi films of the last few years.

Rating: 4.5/5

DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (2014)

(Link for my original review of the film: http://rimoviecorner.blogspot.com/2014/07/dawn-of-planet-of-apes-2014-review.html)

‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ is one of the rare sequels that not only manages to be as good as its predecessor, but ends up being even better than the previous film. Of course, as it was in ‘Rise’, the writing is superb and the film gives us a good group of characters that we really care about from both sides of this ‘conflict’ between the humans that survived the ALZ-113 virus and the apes who have made a life for themselves away from any human interference. But being that this is a sequel, the film also does what you would normally expect from most sequels in that it ups the scale and scope from the previous film and in this film’s case, it’s done really well. The film immediately immerses you in the post-‘Simian Flu’ world via a 15-minute opening sequence focused entirely on Caesar and his fellow apes and the film itself benefits from great direction from Matt Reeves and top of the line visual effects (which are even better here than they were in the previous film) and action sequences. Andy Serkis is even better here in the role of Caesar and is again backed up a terrific cast that includes the likes of Jason Clarke (I also have to give Clarke and Serkis credit as they work off each other really well in this), Gary Oldman, and Keri Russell. So in short, ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ is one of the best summer blockbusters of 2014 and overall one of the best sci-fi sequels in recent memory.

Rating: 5/5!

How would I rank these films, you ask? Like this…

8. Battle for the Planet of the Apes

7. Planet of the Apes (2001)

6. Beneath the Planet of the Apes

5. Conquest of the Planet of the Apes

4. Escape from the Planet of the Apes

3. Planet of the Apes

2. Rise of the Planet of the Apes

1. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

And for the record yes this list indicates that I do sort of prefer the newer ‘Apes’ films but I don’t want this to look like I’m bashing the original ‘Planet of the Apes’ film because I’m not… it’s still a sci-fi classic.